[TUHS] Re: Early Unix and Keyboard Skills

[Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com>]

Just in case there is confusion, vi was Bill Joy, Bostic did nvi (which was
open source and bug for bug compat), Bram did vim, which I think was a 
clean room version of vi with a huge bunch of added goodness.

On Sat, Aug 05, 2023 at 08:22:17PM -0400, KenUnix wrote:
> The thing I like is VI because it is almost universal. Windows, Linux, BSD
> and Unix.
> 
> In a pinch I use "ed".
> 
> Sad to hear today that its creator has passed away.
> 
> --Ken
> 
> 
> On Sat, Aug 5, 2023 at 7:53???PM <scj@yaccman.com> wrote:
> 
> > I took typing in Summer School.  My parents bought me a typewriter with
> > mathematical symbols on it, which was almost worthless, and I had to
> > improvise to get some of the standard characters (for example, the
> > semicolon was comma/backspace/colon).  By the time I was talking to
> > computers ( Model 33 tty) I was happy that I couldn't type faster because
> > it was impossible on that thing.
> >
> > Steve
> > ---
> >
> >
> >
> > On 2022-11-02 00:11, Rob Pike wrote:
> >
> > Neither ken nor dmr were impressive typists. In fact few programmers were
> > then, at least of my acquaintance.
> >
> > In the 1970s Bell Labs created the Getset - think of it as an early wired
> > smartphone, or a Minitel, with a little screen and keyboard. It cost quite
> > a bit but was a cool gadget so the executives all got one. But, in
> > fascinating contrast to the Blackberry a generation later, no one would
> > touch it - literally - because it had a keyboard, and keyboards were for
> > (female) secretaries, not (male) executives. The product, although well
> > ahead of its time, was a complete failure due to the cultural bias then.
> >
> > There may be a good sociology paper in there somewhere.
> >
> > I'm not saying K&D shared this blinkered view, not at all, just that
> > typing skills were not de facto back then. Some of the folks were even
> > two-finger jabbers. I was a little younger and a faster typist than most of
> > the others, and I am not a good typist by any modern standard.
> >
> > bwk was one who could smash out the text faster than many. His having
> > learned on a teletype, the keyboard would resound with the impact of his
> > forceful keystrokes.
> >
> > -rob
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Nov 2, 2022 at 5:53 PM Michael Kj??rling <e5655f30a07f@ewoof.net>
> > wrote:
> >
> > On 2 Nov 2022 13:36 +1100, from sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au (steve jenkin):
> > > There's at least one Internet meme that highly productive coders
> > > necessarily have good keyboard skills, which leads to also producing
> > > documentation or, at least, not avoiding it entirely, as often
> > > happens commercially.
> >
> > I wouldn't be so sure that this necessarily follows. Good keyboard
> > skills definitely help with the mechanics of typing code as well as
> > text, I'll certainly grant that; but someone can be a good typist yet
> > write complete gibberish, or be a poor/slow typist and _by necessity_
> > need to consider each word that they use because typing an extra
> > sentence takes them so long. If it takes you ten seconds to type out a
> > normal sentence, revising becomes less of an issue than if typing out
> > the same sentence takes a minute or a minute and a half.
> >
> > Also, certainly in my case and I doubt that I'm alone, a lot of my
> > time "coding" isn't spent doing the mechanics of "writing code", but
> > rather considering possible solutions to a problem, and what the
> > consequences would be of different choices. That part of the software
> > development process is essentially unaffected by how good one is as a
> > typist, and I expect that the effect would be even more pronounced for
> > someone using something like an ASR-33 and edlin, than a modern
> > computer and visual editor. Again, the longer it takes to revise
> > something, the more it makes sense to get it right on the first
> > attempt, even if that means some preparatory work up-front.
> >
> > Writing documentation is probably more an issue of mindset and being
> > allowed the time, than it is a question of how good one is as a
> > typist.
> >
> > --
> > ???? Michael Kj??rling                  ???? https://michael.kjorling.se
> > "Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?"
> >
> >
> 
> -- 
> End of line
> JOB TERMINATED

-- 
---
Larry McVoy           Retired to fishing          http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat